[410] Dr. Franklin, writing of the year 1773, says (Memoirs, i. 398):—'An acquaintance (Mr. Strahan, M.P.) calling on me, after having just been at the Treasury, showed me what he styled a pretty thing, for a friend of his; it was an order for £150, payable to Dr. Johnson, said to be one half of his yearly pension.'
[411] See post, July 27, 1778.
[412] Hawkins (Life, p. 513) says that Mr. Thrale made the same attempt. 'He had two meetings with the ministry, who at first seemed inclined to find Johnson a seat.' 'Lord Stowell told me,' says Mr. Croker, 'that it was understood amongst Johnson's friends that Lord North was afraid that Johnson's help (as he himself said of Lord Chesterfield's) might have been sometimes embarrassing. "He perhaps thought, and not unreasonably," added Lord Stowell, "that, like the elephant in the battle, he was quite as likely to trample down his friends as his foes."' Lord Stowell referred to Johnson's letter to Chesterfield (ante, i. 262), in which he describes a patron as 'one who encumbers a man with help.'
[413] Boswell married his cousin Margaret Montgomerie on Nov. 25, 1769. On the same day his father married for the second time. Scots Mag. for 1769, p. 615. Boswell, in his Letter to the People of Scotland (p. 55), published in 1785, describes his wife as 'a true Montgomerie, whom I esteem, whom I love, after fifteen years, as on the day when she gave me her hand.' See his Hebrides, Aug. 14, 1773.
[414]
'Musis amicus, tristitiam et metus
Tradam, &c.
While in the Muse's friendship blest,
Nor fear, nor grief, shall break my rest;
Bear them, ye vagrant winds, away,
And drown them in the Cretan Sea.'
FRANCIS. Horace, Odes, i. 26. I.
[415] Horace. Odes, i. 22. 5.
[416] Lord Elibank wrote to Boswell two years later:—'Old as I am, I shall be glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of Mr. Johnson's company.' Boswell's Hebrides under date of Sept. 12, 1773. See ib. Nov. 10, and post, April 5, 1776.